Moral issue on "Missle Dance"

[WhiteHojo]

I have seen lots of Posts both pro and con on the manuever know commonly as the "missle dance".

At 1st I agreed that this was a very unsporting way to to take advantage of the computer players in tact combat.

But while playin a game Last nite I had an epiphany (for me at least).

What is the difference b/t doin a missle dance early in the game (or any time for that matter) and takin advantage of range differences b/t your ships and the computer using DF weapons? IE - you have DUC that hits 5 squares away and cmptr has some wmpy cannon that only shoots 3 squares - logically you stay w/in 4 squares of the enemy (after accounting for movement on both sides)

I fail to see the difference b/t this, as I'll call it, "Max Wpn Range Dance" and the "Missle Dance"... is it just me or am I missing something.

[dmm]

There are four ways this could be inherently unfair:
1) If you come into range, fire, then go back out of range (shoot-and-scoot). The opponent should have been able to fire at you when you came into range.
2) If the computer is too stupid to know that it can simply have the ship being targeted by missiles run away while the other ships close in.
3) If the computer is too stupid to know that DUC ships shouldn't engage CSM ships without either armor or superior numbers.
4) It fails to take inertia into account. It ought to take movement points to turn and reverse course in space. (Anyone else old enough to remember the arcade game "Space Wars"? How about "Asteroids"?) SEIV combat doesn't bother with that, which makes dancing in and out possible. (On the other hand, maybe the engines use some sort of non-inertial drive, which maybe also explains how they can carry enough fuel to zoom all over star systems.)

[This message has been edited by dmm (edited 11 January 2001).]

[TimMcBride]

What the Game needs is a feature called Opportunity fire. It is cominly used in wargames and is a nice feature. Basiclly if an enemy moves into a specified range the ship will fire a weapon.

[This message has been edited by TimMcBride (edited 11 January 2001).]

[Richard]

Actually that is something that may be added later, but it isn't guaranteed.

------------------
Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[TimMcBride]

Richard,
It would make a great addition, providing much more realism to the combat.

Regards,
Tim McBride

[General Hawkwing]

I'm not sure quite how this relates, but I've seen the AI fire missiles and move away from my ships. They will also press their longer range beam advantage if they can. I don't think they move-fire-move but like mentioned previously, an opp. fire (which Richard says could be in the works ) would negate this trick.
The biggest hurddle for the AI in combat is number of movements. I continue to encounter AI battleships, carriers and dreadnaughts with only ion engines. The AI needs to research prop. sooner and to make better use of the additional movement gained in combat.